F-35 Offers Dream Capabilities for Pilots Who Have Flown It

Ease of operation and new technologies outweigh the problems that remain to be solved for the expensive Lightning II.

Military and civilian pilots who have flown the F-35 Lightning II praise its performance and are optimistic about its superiority in the future battlespace. However, even with fixes that have been made, some issues need to be addressed and support crew will need to adopt new ways of maintaining the flight line, these pilots say.

Four pilots sitting on a Tuesday panel at West 2014, co-sponsored by AFCEA International and the U.S. Naval Institute and being held February 11-13 in San Diego, discussed the state of the F-35 program as well as the jet’s prognosis. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Burks, USN, senior Navy test pilot for the F-35 and integrated test force operations officer, described the aircraft as having “unbelievable flying qualities” and being easy to fly. Cmdr. Luke Barradell, USN, operations officer, Carrier Air Wing 11, said that the aircraft is “very docile” in the administrative phased of flight, and it is going to be a delight to fly off carriers.

The lone civilian on the panel, William C. Gigliotti, F-35 FW site/production lead test pilot, Lockheed Martin, noted that his 14-year-old son has his heart set on being a naval aviator. “I want my son to fly one of these going into combat,” Gigliotti said, adding, “not that I want him to go into combat, but I want him to have an unfair advantage. We don’t want parity.”

Cmdr. Burks offered that the aircraft’s technologies will change the way air missions are carried out. Equipped with a plethora of sensors and datalinks, the vehicle offers a range of potential alternitives with the synergy it brings to the battlespace. “In the future, it may not matter where the weapon comes from,” the commander said of a bombing run. “I may pass the data along, or I may fire a weapon and it may come from somewhere else. That is where we are heading.”

Still, the F-35’s advanced technologies are offering some unforeseen challenges. Its low-observable stealth material will require different handling than traditional carrier aircraft. Cdr. Burks said here will have to be a “paradigm shift out in the fleet” to maintain its low observability. “No longer can we allow these aircraft to get grimy at sea” as was the practice with conventional jet aircraft, he observed. Gigliotti said that sailors and Marines have been developing new practices for that purpose. The incredibly noisy engine also will change life for deck crews during takeoff, Cmdr. Burks added, saying they probably will need noise cancellation earphones.

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The hard cold truth and unfortunate reality is that the F-35, despite being almost a religious experience to some of the proponent, is simply not a sustainable Program. There will just not be anywhere near the currently still assumed and expected Procurement orders placed in coming Fiscal Years, due to the indefinite austere budget environment. The presumed numbers of F-35 to be procured annually (under late LRIP lots and early FRP lots) will be significantly slashed further than they already have to date, due to additional restructurings. The jets sadly will never be 'affordable', just as the F-22 was expected and estimated to be 'affordable' even as late as 2005-2006 and produced in higher numbers.

Another critical flaw in the above assessments by the pilots is that the 'dream' jet is likely still another 5 years away from block 3 IOC for International partners and by then, who knows how many they will have been able to afford and what new, competitor capabilities they will be up against.

Moreover, the block IV (a critical update), as was originally required by allies as their baseline operational jet, won't likely be IOC until 2022 or even 2023! There could be all kinds of revolutionary 'game-changing' tactics, new technologies and asymmetrical capabilities by then -- including next-gen stealthy UCAV platforms proliferating around the world and whole new weapon classes -- which could chip away at the F-35's relevance. (Not to mention the reduction in F-35's relevance when the first F-22s retire).

But perhaps the most truly (scary) grotesque comment which probably stuck out to more than a few readers, was that of the LM test pilot boasting of not being able to wait until his son goes into combat as a Naval aviator flying the presumed F-35C. With all due respect...what kind of exploitative and arguably irresponsible comment was that? First of all, again, the 'test-pilot' has no expertise or any concept of which actual potential (superior) threats his son might have to face in the 2025-2030 time-frame (challenging parity), if he did in fact become a future Naval aviator! Besides... Nobody in the world today should be hoping for or glamorizing a fantastical combat experience for their son, as they might have done in ancient times.

Being a naval aviator would be a wonderful job/career. Americas military doctrine is based on deterrence. It is much more likely his son will not face combat and will retire from the military to fly passenger jets as his careeer. And as a side note, who cares what you think. Unfortunately we live in a world that could care less about others. We live in a world that
doesnt care about how hard you can hug a tree. All great civilizations have failed because thier military wasnt strong enough to defend the people. If you are naive enough to think we should just end all military procurement then everything I have said here will fall on deaf ears.

So we are 8 or so years into the building and design phase of the F-35 project, the most expensive defense program of all time, a project that has involved all 4 major branches of the US Military, and you expect people to believe the brightest aeronautical engineers who designed this aircraft along with the exceptionally long list of US pilots they've gotten feedback from over the length of the program nobody bothered to fix a visibility problem that would get these things consistently shot down in combat.........please just stop! You sound like you get your information from the Russian Gazette or The Putin News Weekly! The fact of the matter is everyone who's flown one of these bad boys said its unbelievable! I don't know the truth behind your other claims but with this claim alone you have lost all credibility

reply to stokanator - Yes, one or two F-35 test pilots actually said that the poor visibility around the F-35 would consistently get them shot down in close combat. However, we are working to make the sensor system work to its specifications. Once we have it working, the pilots should have superior visibility to their eyes alone. Just give us some time. And, if Lockheed or military test pilots make a negative public statement about the aircraft that they are testing and we find out who they are, they will NEVER fly again. You can rest assured. Just remember, the F-35 is a special aircraft, primarily for intelligence gathering. We have never said that it is an air superiority fighter. The head of the USAF says it will be flying in groups of eight with two F-22's to provide top cover. That way, so long as it outnumbers the enemy, once its systems are fully developed and up to date jamming pods are available in a few more years, it will be vastly superior to ANYTHING comparable.

I've seen what the f-35 is capable of first hand and have no doubt its real mission will be causing
fear in our friends and neighbors and our own families seeing it's poised to fight " domestic terrorism" or at least that's how it will be put forth in the propaganda used to misinform the public while concealing their true intentions of finishing off what little is left of our Government in the name of freedom even though they are the liars. The F-35 can fly really slow and the lighting they have cause people all over this country to assume theyve seen a "UFO" and our leaders say nothing not one word because it's secret and regular people have no right to know what's going on anyway it's not like the people are the Government no these people work for Mr. Big the nameless faceless person who never existed but don't tell them that or you may be labeled a terrorist.

The regular people are the next monster war needs waged on to keep us in line and under their control and believe it or not a major city could be terrorized big time by just a few f-35's with the ability to see into multiple homes, monitor your cellphone and lock and load onto a thousand targets at once as they announce no-one is allowed to resist without risking being attacked and harrassed by what you are rightfully the ruler of. Like I said they harrassed my family for over an hour and a half and believe it or not it started by them leading us on a 14 mile drive home for us and we arrived at our destination the same time the four of them did and that feat is pretty hard to beat by any modern fighter. The point you're missing is thinking it was designed to fight other planes. I could have hit the ones that flew over our house with a rock or brought one down with a harpoon gun but they weren't on a seek and destroy mission they were just practicing fly over super low and slow, hard bank, slow down some more, circle back around and repeat over and over and over again. I've seen our little dog chase a cessna that flew over across our yard that was travelling faster than these birds were. The engines make a distinct sound and the lights blink crazy. From underneath they are dull gray and look like something out of star wars but it was late at nite and stealthy is how they are. My guess is they were operating under command of DHS. You tell me,,,,,,, adios